1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a packet switching system and more particularly to a method and a system for switching input variable-length packets destination by destination.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventional routers and other packet switches have relied mainly on software processing, which is low in processing speed. Today, high-speed flow detection (e.g. CAM) and high-speed fixed-length packet switching (e.g. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)) switch and crossbar switch) both of which are derived from H/W schemes are available and allow software processing to be replaced with hardware processing, promoting high-speed packet switching. However, a problem with a packet switching system using hardware processing is that a frequency band required of a packet switch is broadened, depending on the size of variable-length packets input to the system.
Technologies relating to the present invention are disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2000-151633 and 2000-232482.